I will not bow
by ThouShaltNotScream
Summary: Kakashi is all on his lonesome, again. And he has to deal with it, again. Watch his try not to break and bow, again. And watch as he fails. Again?


Disclaimer: Yeah Yeah... Song belongs to Breaking Benjamin, Charactars to some crazy guy in Japan. But the Plot is MINE! Mine, i tell you! Mwahahahaha Cough cough... Okay. So Enjoy.

* * *

**Fall!**

Hindsight is a bitch. Kakashi knew that there was more he could have done: turned Sasuke from his avenger status, paid more attention to Sakura, shown that he cared for Naruto. But Kakashi had long ago learned that it hurt to care, and three twelve year olds could hardly change that in the short time they had knew each other. It might have been that Naruto reminded him so much of his sensei, that he could see himself in Sasuke, and that Sakura was so much like Rin. He didn't know, and it hurt too much to think about it. So instead he let missions consume his life, even went back on active status in ANBU. One could never truly retire from the shadows, just like he could never truly forget that it was _his fault_.

**Now the dark begins to rise  
Save your breath it's far from over  
Leave the lost and dead behind  
Now's your chance to run for cover  
I don't want to change the world  
I just want to leave it colder  
Light the fuse and burn it up  
Take the path that leads to nowhere  
All is lost again, but I'm not giving in  
**

There were more and more of them these days. Kakashi was being sent on missions that were difficult, even for the apathetic non-feeling thing he had become. So he took as many as he could, partly because he didn't want the younger, and so less accustomed to the brutality and warfare that made up his life, members of ANBU to have to, and partly because he need a distraction from the hole inside of him. And the one he was on was especially trying. He knew that it was a suicidal mission, for anyone but him. He knew that there was a very high possibility of him coming back injured, and a slightly less one of him not coming home at all. He was starting to divert from his once tightly held principals; now it was leave no one behind unless they were lost, or dead, in which case they couldn't come back anyways. He no longer cared if the mission was completed, only to get away from Kohona as it held too many memories of past mistakes, his father, Obito, Rin, Minato-Sensei, Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke.

**I will not bow, I will not break  
I will shut the world away  
I will not fall, I will not fade  
I will take your breath away  
**

Yet he couldn't seem to bring himself to the point where he'd die. He'd been in spots of trouble that should have gotten him tortured and killed, but he always seemed to be able to escape. The legend of the Hound had returned, only now it was even more stained with the blood of innocents than ever. Tsunade had sent Sakura to check on him and his sanity, when he was in the village on his three day break from ANBU missions, but with a few perverted remarks, and excuses about being late to where he was supposed to meet her, she was satisfied and so left. He blocked off more of his connection with the world. He tried not to disappear.

**Fall! **

He didn't think it was working.

**Watch the end through dying eyes  
Now the dark is taking over  
Show me where forever dies  
Take the fall and run to heaven  
All is lost again, but I'm not giving in**

Kakashi sometimes saw the dead now. Or more accurately, Obito's eye saw them, and Kakashi was helpless to make them go away. He wasn't altogether sure he wanted to. He was evaporating, and no one noticed because the sun wasn't out. He wondered if suicide would take him to heaven, or would he be forgotten. It was a moot point: outside of ANBU he was regarded as mythological, as Gai was away on an extended mission, Sakura was busy with the Hospital and they had never been that close anyways, and Naruto was off with Jiraya. Inside of ANBU, only Yamato, Ibiki and Anko treated him like a person, and there were rumors that Anko and Yamato were to be executed by the council sometime soon, and Ibiki was head of T&I so he didn't get attached, but that was fine for Ibiki, who had a firm base to support himself on. Kakashi felt himself slipping, and he tried to grasp hold of something that would make him feel rational again.

**I will not bow, I will not break  
I will shut the world away  
I will not fall, I will not fade  
I will take your breath away**

Maybe it was working. After all these years, he had finally reached stable ground, but he was too experienced to expect it to hold forever. The only way for him to endure was to ignore all else and himself. Concentrate on the mundane things, missions. Assassination missions, seduction missions, interrogation missions, information missions. Any and all missions that only required one person and that person had to be able to focus enough to the point where the only thing able to break their concentration was to destroy them, completely and utterly. Focus was the key to his existence now, if Kakashi didn't forget what he was, it didn't matter if anyone else did. Who he was, that was lost long ago with no chance of rediscovery. He found that people stared at him, with Kakashi being idiosyncratic enough as to start believing in (1)solophism, he no longer felt a need to wear a mask, when all he was doing was trying to hide from himself and that wasn't even working.

**And I'll survive, paranoid  
I have lost the will to change  
And I am not proud, cold blooded, fake  
I will shut the world away**

So he'd endure. Recover, no. Enjoy, no. Live, no. But he'd survive, and that was all that was expected of him. He didn't have the energy for anything else, now that all the tethers that connected him to this world were gone except one. He felt an obligation in that if he wasn't there, someone else would have to do the morally repulsive and horrid missions he was doing. He had yet to stop caring for the idea of an abstract ANBU that was his hypothetical replacement. It wasn't pride or pleasure that kept him there. He just wanted to be left alone and ANBU was the best was to do that.

**You're right! **

At least for him it was the best place. He wouldn't recommend it to anyone else, but no one else seemed to matter anymore, not even intangible people.

**I will not bow, I will not break  
I will shut the world away  
I will not fall, I will not fade  
I will take your breath away**

He refused to just disappear. After working so long and hard to step out from the shadow of a father he never really knew, and had forgotten by now, he refused to just fade, and leave the legend of the Hound, bathed in blood and drowned in loneliness, to anyone else. It was the last prideful thing he could do. He felt that there was no reason for his existence other than that.

**And I'll survive, paranoid  
I have lost the will to change  
And I am not proud, cold blooded, fake  
I will shut the world away  
**

He'd go on. He could have been commander of the ANBU forces, if he wanted it. He could have, but he didn't. How was ordering tools to go to their deaths distracting enough? All he wanted was to forget, forget everything. He no longer knew what he was, that had faded from his mind. He no longer could remember how many he had killed, but that didn't bother him. If there wasn't a number, then he could pretend it was however many was enough. He shut out the world, and it shut out him. He didn't care, but then he couldn't remember if he ever had or what was under his mask. It was easier being Hound then Kak… Ka… Kaka… whoever he was.

**Fall!**

And maybe that was for the best.

* * *

(1)Solophism- when you believe that everything is a product of your mind. You, essentially, are yourself and everyone else, Killing people is justified because you are killing yourself and yet you are alive so it doesn't hurt anyone but you and as there is only you it doesn't matter. You can correct me if you have a better definition; in fact I'd like that, as this is my definition and not a dictionary or anything.

NOTES Yeah… this is most definitely AU. I was gonna kill people off near the end, but then I couldn't think of a good way to tell it without making Kakashi seem like he cared. I really like writing Kakashi in ANBU. Especially angst Kakashi. And ANBU. I think I have a slight obsession…

Actually, all my fics seem to be either angst, or have some sort of ANBU thing. Or Both.

If you ever want to make me really happy…. Write me an ANBU fic. Any character but Ino and Sakura. Seriously. Chouji in ANBU, if well written, would be very interesting. And so would Shikamaru. Or Itachi and Kyuubi fics. There are waaaay to few. And though I have tried, I can't seem to get a decent one out.

Also, most of these are song-fics. I rather like all of them, except for that through the fire and flames one. It was one of my first (first published!) and though I thought it was okay, I don' really like it anymore…..

Reviews make me happy! And being happy makes me able to write, which lets me post, so you can review, and the cycle goes on!


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